IVC's Performing Arts Center on this sunny day

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He followed them out the door

• A BLOW TO THE NOGGIN FOR THE INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH. In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

A committee of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Wednesday rejected a proposal by the Institute for Creation Research to start offering online master’s degrees in science education, The Dallas Morning News reported. While the full board still must vote, Wednesday’s action was a major defeat for the institute, which teaches that evolution did not take place. Raymund Paredes, commissioner of higher education, recommended the vote against the institute’s proposal, saying: “Evolution is such a fundamental principle of contemporary science it is hard to imagine how you could cover the various fields of science without giving it the proper attention it deserves as a foundation of science. Religious belief is not science. Science and religious belief are surely reconcilable, but they are not the same thing.” Institute officials have said that they may reframe their proposal or sue the board.

• REMEMBER NED DOFFONEY? The Final Three: NOCCCD announces finalists for the district's chancellor postion:

The North Orange County Community College District recently announced the three finalists for the chancellor position which will become vacant July 1, when current Chancellor Jerome Hunter retires. ¶ The finalists for the position are: Rita Cepeda, president of San Diego Mesa College, Ned Doffoney current president of Fresno City College, and Christopher C. O'Hearn the former superintendent/president of Mt. San Antonio College. ¶ … The new chancellor will be announced some time in May.

Doffoney was President of Saddleback College (but not for long) when the infamous “Reorg” occurred in July of 1997. As I recall, he was the only administrator who stuck around to answer questions from anxious faculty after the decision was announced. Raghu Mathur, then IVC interim President, who plotted and schemed to help bring about the (illegal) Reorg, and who assured IVC faculty that no major changes would occur during the summer, refused to answer questions, and simply followed his Brown-Act violating patrons out the door.

BIZ-TIC, SNAFU, & DARFUR

DARFUR
.....There was some excitement on campus (IVC) today—though not as much as there should be—owing to Amnesty International's booth in front of the Student Services Center, former home of "flags of the world" (but no longer, cuz, well, extortion works). Amnesty is promoting a petition that will be given to Condoleeza Rice to pressure her to help get UN troops in Darfur.
.....The young women in charge of the booth weren't getting a lot of business, though at least they weren't as lonely as the Bible ladies fifteen yards north. All those neatly arranged Bibles! They just couldn't give 'em away!
.....Want to sign the petition? Drop by Reb & Chunk’s office (A239). Or go to Eyes on Darfur.


ATEP
.....I ran into a friend today who was growing concerned about the ATEP project (the Advanced Technology and Education Park in Tustin). It turns out that this thing is going to be WAY bigger than faculty realize—“WAY WAY,” she said. And yet faculty, who are the only group authorized to develop instructional programs, are doing nothing to prepare. Based on what my friend told me, it sounds like we ought to be planning, among other things, the hire of full-time instructors and experts to develop programs that, for the most part, just don’t exist at the college.
.....I pointed out the obvious: that faculty are not preparing because, from the start, Chancellor Mathur and his Top-Downers have made a point of leaving faculty entirely out of the loop, ATEP-development-wise—and pretty much EVERY-WAY-wise.
.....“Well, yeah,” said the friend. Her voice trailed off.
.....“SNAFU!” I shouted.




BIZ-TIC
.....As you know, yet another major building is under construction at Irvine Valley College. It’s the $23+ million Business, Sciences, and Technology Innovation Center (BIZ-TIC), a 53,000 square foot structure that is supposed to be completed this semester, I think. They’ve got the “shell” up, anyway, and some of the rooms are dry-walled. (I looked inside.)
.....I took a few pics. Check 'em out.
.....I perused some old newspaper articles about BIZ-TIC. Officials are quoted saying the usual thing—about how it “will open business opportunities to students and the community, and help the college grow.”
....."This particular building,” said President Roquemore, “will be at the cutting edge of technology."
.....Looks pretty impressive, I guess. Very modern, stucco-and-quonset-hut construction. Makes me wanna get a tetanus shot.

He'll deliver it for you (Rebel Girl)

.    (A REBEL GIRL post.)
.    She doesn't know about you, but Rebel Girl sure got inspired when she received this email:

.    On Monday, April 21 your district news update included a request for letters of support. The letter you received with suggested copy has been revised. If you are interested in writing a letter for Chancellor Mathur to deliver to the Governor's Office on May 8, you may use the sample letter, or you may wish to customize it with personal stories about your students or your programs. This letter was intended only as suggested copy. Please transmit your letter (by campus mail or attached to an e-mail) to Tracy Daly in the district office by Friday, May 2.
.    If you have any questions, please contact Tracy Daly at tdaly@socccd.edu.

.    It's not often that we in the district have an opportunity to have voices and stories heard directly by the state legislature and the governor. As numerous emails attest, Chancellor Mathur plans to carry our letters with him when he travels to Sacramento!
.    We here at Dissent encourage our readership to write letters and let the Chancellor deliver them for you. While the district has provided sample copy, please note that we're also encouraged to "customize it" and tell our own "personal stories." We here at DISSENT know we all have stories to tell. You tell them to us all the time. Now's the time to share them with a wider audience!
.    It is true that our district is threatened with proposed budget cuts and that we should lobby against fee increases and for increased funding. But we're also threatened by forces much closer to home. Some people may even suggest that the board and Mathur are greater threats. We suggest that you write letters addressing the nature of both threats and asking for relief. (See RG's customization below.)
.    So, do write your letters and send them on to the district.
.    Consider this: If you all seal the envelope, they'll have to cut them open to decide which letters will actually make it north!

Ruben Salazar gets a stamp!

From today's Los Angeles Times:

It is not every day that we have the opportunity to celebrate a colleague whose work for this newspaper stands the scrutiny of history. Journalism, by its nature, tends to focus on the immediate. Only a few of any generation leave a bold enough mark to be visible over generations. One such journalist was Ruben Salazar, whom we honor today as the United States Postal Service issues a stamp to commemorate his life and work.

To many, Salazar is recalled largely for his death. He was killed at the age of 42 by a tear-gas canister fired by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy during a Chicano antiwar protest-turned-riot in East Los Angeles in 1970. It is right and important that we remember Salazar's death. His clear-eyed, unflinching journalism impelled him to places of danger and made him enemies, some in law enforcement. But his contribution exceeds his sacrifice. In the 11 years that his work appeared in these pages, Salazar was a voice of the people—la voz de la Raza, some called him.

Salazar was an early and eloquent explorer of the Mexican American experience. He chronicled that experience around the world, reporting from Mexico, of course, but also the Dominican Republic and Vietnam. His greatest work was done in Los Angeles, where Salazar refused to accept the pathologies of immigrant life. He covered schools and police-community relations. He rightly complained about a system of political representation that denied Latinos any place on the City Council or county Board of Supervisors. He refused to accept that Mexican immigrants, whose contributions were forming the city we now inhabit, were to be treated as somehow outside it. He wrote from the ground up, which is why he found himself in the Silver Dollar Cafe on Aug. 29, 1970, as the rioting churned through the neighborhood and as that deputy fired the canister that killed him.

Much has changed in the years since Salazar died. He would surely be pleased to see a Mexican American mayor and other elected leaders; he would welcome the signs of political cohesion among Latinos. But he would find Los Angeles schools painfully familiar, and he would have no trouble recognizing the often shrill debate over illegal immigration. As Los Angeles enjoys "Ruben Salazar Day," we, his proud former colleagues, rededicate ourselves to the city that he imagined, one where we recognize and celebrate our varied heritages and set aside those differences in order to build a society together.

While others have noted this elsewhere, Rebel Girl would like to point out the incomplete phrase that adorns the stamp, how it begins abruptly with the preposition: "during Chicano protest rally in East Los Angeles." Point of fact: Salazar was not killed during the rally—he was killed miles from the rally, in the aftermath of what many, Rebel Girl included, would characterize as a police riot.

Rebel Girl, ever the English major and activist, also wonders about the absence of the only verb that fits: killed.

Then there's the rub—as Michael Sedano over at la bloga points out: "There's something more, yet less, in the stamp story. It's "good" only for the next twenty days. The USPS issued the stamp at the current first class standard, 41 cents. On May 12, you’ll have to add a one cent mark-up if you want to honor Salazar with his stamp, since the first class rate goes up to 42 cents."

Rebel Girl hears the little voice in her head: Shut up and be grateful.

Never.

From the USPS site: Note: When reproducing the Salazar image, please include the following: Ruben Salazar, from the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive (Collection 1429), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA

UPDATE: A quick perusal of today's OC Register brings to light two things: a 42 cent version of the stamp (!) and an IVC link. Credited with lobbying for the stamp is one Olga Briseno, currently director of the Media, Democracy and Policy Initiative at the University of Arizona at Tempe and onetime founder of the journalism program and newspaper at IVC, a program since beaten to a bloodly pulp by the powers that be and continue to be.

Anti-science adventures: Stein, Ahmanson, & Fuentes

.....As I’m sure you are aware, some right-wingers are atwitter over the release of Ben Stein’s anti-science movie, Expelled. Being a hilarious guy, Stein has done a tour of college campuses with his flick. It’s now in theaters, where it isn’t doing as well as Stein & the knuckle-draggers had hoped.
.....Here are excerpts from a review of the movie that appeared in Scientific American a week or so ago: Ben Stein's Expelled: No Integrity Displayed:

.....In the new science-bashing movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Ben Stein and the rest of the filmmakers sincerely and seriously argue that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution paved the way for the Holocaust. By "seriously," I mean that Ben Stein acts grief-stricken and the director juxtaposes quotes from evolutionary biologists with archival newsreel clips from Hitler's Reich….
.....No one could have been more surprised than I when the producers called, unbidden, offering Scientific American's editors a private screening. Given that our magazine's positions on evolution and intelligent design (ID) creationism reflect those of the scientific mainstream (that is, evolution: good science; ID: not science), you have to wonder why they would bother. It's not as though anything in Expelled would have been likely to change our views. And they can't have been looking for a critique of the science in the movie, because there isn't much to speak of.
.....Rather, it seems a safe bet that the producers hope a whipping from us would be useful for publicity…..
.....Unfortunately, Expelled is a movie not quite harmless enough to be ignored. Shrugging off most of the film's attacks—all recycled from previous pro-ID works—would be easy, but its heavy-handed linkage of modern biology to the Holocaust demands a response for the sake of simple human decency.
…..
.....…Stein explains that he is speaking out because he has "lately noticed a dire trend" that threatens the state of our nation: the ascendance of godless, materialist, evolutionary science and an unwillingness among academics to consider more theistic alternatives. … He and Expelled charge that scientists, in their rejection of religious explanations, have become as intolerant as Nazis….
…..
.....I should note that Stein and Expelled rarely refer to "scientists" as I did—they call them Darwinists. Similarly, this review may have already used the word "evolution" about as often as the whole of Expelled does; in the movie, it is always Darwinism. The term is a curious throwback, because in modern biology almost no one relies solely on Darwin's original ideas—most researchers would call themselves neo-Darwinian if they bothered to make the historical connection at all because evolutionary science now encompasses concepts as diverse as symbiosis, kin selection and developmental genetics….
.....Expelled then trots out some of the people whom it claims have been persecuted by the Darwinist establishment. First among them is Richard Sternberg, former editor of the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington…. Sternberg tells Stein that he subsequently lost his editorship….
.....What most viewers of Expelled may not realize—because the film doesn't even hint at it—is that Sternberg's case is not quite what it sounds. Biologists criticized Sternberg's choice to publish [an ID] paper not only because it supported ID but also because Sternberg approved it by himself rather than sending it out for independent expert review. He didn't lose his editorship; he published the paper in what was already scheduled to be his last issue as editor. He didn't lose his job at the Smithsonian; his appointment there as an unpaid research associate had a limited term, and when it was over he was given a new one. His office move was scheduled before the paper ever appeared… And so on.
.....…The movie's one-sided version is either the result of shoddy investigation or deliberate propagandizing—neither of which reflects well on the other information in the film.
.....So it is with the rest of Expelled's parade of victims. Caroline Crocker, a biology teacher, was allegedly dismissed from her position at George Mason University after merely mentioning ID; the film somehow never reports exactly what she said or why anyone objected to it. Reporter Pamela Winnick was supposedly pilloried and fired after she wrote objectively about evolution and ID; we don't know exactly what she wrote but later we do hear her asserting with disgust that "Darwinism devalues human life." The film forgot to mention that Winnick is the author of the book A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion—a title that suggests her objectivity on the subject might be a bit tarnished.
.....The movie's unreliable reporting is even more obvious during the scene in which Stein interviews Bruce Chapman, the president of the Discovery Institute, the institutional heart of ID advocacy. Stein asks whether the Discovery Institute has supported the teaching of ID in science classes so avidly because it is trying to sneak religion back into public schools. Chapman says no and the film blithely takes him at his word. No mention is made of the notorious "Wedge" document, a leaked Discovery Institute manifesto that outlined a strategy of opposing evolution and turning the public against scientific materialism as the first step toward making society more politically conservative and theistic. Maybe Ben Stein didn't think it was relevant, but wouldn't an honest film have trusted its audience to judge for itself? [END]

..... The chief financial backer of the Discovery Institute is, of course, Orange County’s own Howard Ahmanson, Jr., a close (and filthy-rich) friend of trustee Tom Fuentes (both are on the Claremont Institute board of directors and Bible Study Group).
.....As we’ve reported previously, Ahmanson is a Christian Reconstructionist, i.e., someone who seeks to apply “the general principles of Old Testament and New Testament moral law and case laws in the appropriate family, church and/or civil government.” Christian Reconstructionists further believe “that God's kingdom began at the first coming of Jesus Christ, and will advance throughout history until it fills the whole earth through conversion to the Christian faith….”
.....(Ahmanson is a disciple of Rousas John Rushdoony, who wrote: "...Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies....")
.....Fuentes is on the board of a right-wing publisher that puts out anti-evolution books such as Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? See "Kill It or Grill It"—and other Fuentean titles.

Help me count these beans

.....I admit it. When it comes to fiscal matters, I’m pretty clueless.
.....Occasionally, I hear our union leaders carp about the huge pile of money the trustees are sitting on, thanks to our “Basic Aid” gravy train—apparently, the SOCCCD is nearly unique among cc districts with regard to funding. We’re rolling in dough, they say, and yet the colleges are kept on miserly budgets. And why no raises for faculty? And why are these trustees squirreling away so much of the taxpayers’ money? “It’s obscene,” they say.
.....I guess so. I’m trying to find somebody to explain all of this.
.....I try to follow the bouncing Basic Aid ball, but it isn’t easy. Every time somebody explains that funding model, they make it sound as though budget cuts in Sacramento don’t affect us, since we get our money from local property taxes, not as an allocation from state budget money earmarked for community colleges.
.....OK. I get it. Or do I?
.....A few days ago (April 14), we received state budget news from Tracy Daly. Evidently, the district has been sent an “update” written by Robert Blattner, which was attached to Tracy’s email. The upshot seems to be that April tax collections are “down.” The news is bad and will continue to be bad, budgetwise.
.....But wait! The SOCCCD is a Basic Aid district. That means we get most of our funding from local property tax, not from the state via money budgeted for community colleges. Isn’t that how it goes?
.....Maybe so. After laying out the grim April tax facts, Blattner presents what he takes to be an even more “solid” fact:

According to a just-made-public survey of County assessors…, statewide growth in local property tax revenue for the budget year is sharply below earlier projections. The survey, which included most of the state’s counties and all of its large ones, projects a 4.5 percent growth between current and budget years, compared to the 7 percent forecast by the Administration…. This news doesn’t affect school districts directly (except for Basic Aid districts, which receive their local property taxes instead of revenue limit funding).

.....Blattner is saying that the bad news about property taxes does directly affect us. OK, I get that.
.....In her email, Tracy quotes the Chancellor:

“At this point, the State budget shortfall is being projected at $22 Billion. It is anticipated that the budget will get worse as the State receives the tax filings by April 15 and homeowners increasingly request reappraisal of their property taxes due to the declining housing market.”

.....--OK, I get the “homeowner” part. We’re Basic Aid. But is there any reason why the budget Stinkeroo should affect us, beyond the property tax situation?
.....Tracy (Mathur?) goes on to say:

The Orange County Community Colleges Legislative Task Force is working to communicate to legislators our concern over proposed cuts to community colleges, and gathering support letters to present to the Governor. More information will be sent out on this campaign soon.

.....--Yeah, but we’ve gotta be the odd duck in that crowd, right? These other districts aren’t Basic Aid, and so they’ve got to worry about these cuts. Not us. We are Basic Aid. What we want isn’t quite what everybody else wants, right?
.....Help me out here.
.....Tracy finishes with:

Board Vice President John Williams and Chancellor Mathur will be in Sacramento tomorrow [i.e., on the 15th, last Tuesday] to join the Community College League of California in speaking with legislators about the budget.

.....But, again, among this delegation, we’re odd man out, right? Insofar as SOCCCD is concerned, we don’t care about no stinkin’ state budget, right?
.....I figure that, if this is confusing to me, it’s likely confusing to other folks too. So maybe some of you out there can enlighten the benighted—in plain English. I’d appreciate it.